- Tri-ang Railways
Tri-ang Railways was a British manufacturer of
toy train s, one of the elements of theLines Bros Ltd company who traded using the Tri-ang brand name. The Tri-ang Railways name was dropped after Lines Bros took over the Hornby name although the majority of the trains were still the original Tri-ang models.History
Tri-ang name
The brothers George and Joseph Lines made wooden toys in the Victorian age, their company being G & J lines Ltd. Joseph was the active partner while George went into farming. Joseph (or Joe) had four sons. Three of these — William, Walter and Arthur Edwin Lines — formed
Lines Bros Ltd soon afterWorld War I . Three "Lines" make a triangle, hence the Tri-ang. Arthur's son, Richard Lines, was largely responsible for the Tri-ang Railways system.Foundation of Tri-ang Railways
Rovex Plastics Ltd was founded just after the
World War II in 1946 by Alexander Venetzian, who made toys forMarks & Spencer . Venetzian was asked to develop an electric toy train set for Christmas 1950. He delivered the product but although the company had found larger premises in a former Brewery in Richmond, it was constrained financially. Lines Bros were looking to expand into railways and so they purchased Rovex. Their products would be sold under the Tri-ang Railways name from 1951. To give room for development they moved the company now Rovex Scale Models Ltd to a brand new factory built atMargate , inKent , in 1954.The success of Tri-ang meant that British competitors Trix and Hornby-Dublo were affected. In 1964, Hornby Dublo, a division of
Meccano Ltd , had stopped production and Meccano Ltd invited Lines Bros. Ltd to buy them out. Tri-ang purchased the company including a large amount of stock. The combined toy railways was marketed as Triang-Hornby although the vast majority of the models was all Tri-ang. The Hornby name being more established and recognised, the Tri-ang part was later dropped and it was sold asHornby Railways .Tri-ang later made
TT gauge models as well as 00/H0 gauge. The3mm Society [http://www.3mmsociety.org.uk] supports those who still model Tri-ang TT.Australian and New Zealand models
A number of Tri-ang models specific to
Australia were produced by Moldex in Melbourne during the 1960s, including
* NSW 1955 type suburban electric motor car and driving trailer car.
* A blue version of NSW 1955 type suburban cars pretending to be a faux Victoria EMU was planned but never produced
* Victorian B class double-ended diesel also came in 'Transaustralia' livery.Other models were manufactured in Auckland,
New Zealand , but were mainly the same as those made in England but there were interesting variationsThe Australian and New Zealand models were produced in
00 gauge only.South African models
A limited number of models were manufactured in Durban, South Africa. These are very rare.
ee also
*
Hornby Railways External links
* [http://www.tri-angsociety.co.uk/ Tri-ang society]
* [http://www.tri-ang.co.uk Tri-ang Model Railways]
* [http://www.tri-angrailways.com Tri-ang Railways]
* [http://www.triang.nl/ Triang large road vehicles]
* [http://www.modeltrains.net.au/hornby/ Online database of Tri-ang Railways models, 1959 - 1972 and beyond]
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